Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Every Character Ranked Worst To Best

Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains one of the most enduring pop culture landmarks of modern TV, and though the writing and inventive worldbuilding has a lot to do with its popularity, the main factor keeping fans enraptured after all these years is the characters.

A show populated by typical teenagers thrown into an otherworldly conflict with evil, various demons, vampires, super soldiers, witches, werewolves and the like, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was never lacking a solid character line-up to keep the story moving and the drama heightened.

Not all the characters are that great, with a small handful feeling both undeveloped and even downright awful in their lack of depth, but for the most part the supernatural drama series always knew how to use its world to craft compelling characters fans would come to almost unanimously love.

With that in mind, this list will attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out which of the show's many personalities is the finest of them all. Here's every main character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ranked worst to best, with major spoilers throughout.

Though Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a consistently solid collection of characters, there is one all-out dud in secret super soldier Riley Finn.

Introduced as a more "normal" love interest for Buffy following her breakup with Angel, Riley was presented as a charming, virtuous military man working for the shady Initiative organisation before joining Buffy and the gang to bring them down for their inhumane crimes.

There are moments peppered throughout the fourth and fifth seasons where Riley looks like he's going to work. His relationship with Buffy sometimes feels genuine, and his friendship with Xander is a particular standout.

But once the Initiative was destroyed, so too was Riley's potential, and as the fifth season wore on he became more and more of a let-down, abandoning his friends, closing himself off emotionally, and taking zero pride in the fact that Buffy was stronger than him.

His final arc on the show was overlong and tedious, Marc Blucas' performance was painfully wooden, and the fact that season five improved so much once he was gone speaks volumes.